"Let
us hope all for the best, my Captain, but let us keep our powder very
dry!"
Two days and one night of steady flying over the ocean of sand, with
but an occasional oasis or caravan to break the appalling wastes of
emptiness, brought _Nissr_ to the Valley of the Nile. The river of
hoar antiquity came to view in a quivering heat-haze, far to eastward.
In anticipation of possible attack, _Nissr_ was forced to her best
altitude, of now forty-seven hundred feet, all gun-stations were
manned and the engines were driven to their limit. The hour was
anxious; but the Legion passed the river in safety, just a little
south of the twentieth degree, near the Third Cataract. Bohannan's
gloomy forebodings proved groundless.
The Red Sea and Arabia were now close at hand. Tension increased.
Rrisa thrilled with a malicious joy. He went to the door of the
captive Sheik, and in flowery Arabic informed him the hour of
reckoning was at last drawing very near.
"Thou carrion!" he exclaimed. "Soon shalt thou be in the hands of the
Faithful. Soon shall Allah make thy countenance cold, O offspring of a
one-eyed man!"
Three hours after, the air-liner sighted a dim blue line that marked
the Red Sea.
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